ELT in General Senior High School

Since the 1980s, English language proficiency has been considered as a crucial tool for China’s modernization and economic development and has been actively promoted within its education system at all levels (Adamson 2004; Vickers & Zeng 2018). Foreign Languages, which means English in the vast majority of the cases, is one of the ‘three core subjects’ (san zhuke 三主课) of China’s school education and of the gaokao 高考, the Chinese Nationwide Unified Examination for Admissions to General Universities and Colleges. Due to its crucial role in preparing students to sit the gaokao, this contribution focuses on Chinese general senior high school and English language teaching at its level. More specifically, the aim is to highlight the influence that this exam, and its English part more specifically, has on teaching and learning practices, ultimately defining them with its content and creating this way an effect of dissonance between what is declared in the guidelines issued by the Chinese Ministry of Education for English language teaching in senior high school and what is actually taught in the classrooms. In doing so, this paper attempts to contribute to the academic discussion about foreign language teaching and language policy.